Week 1 - The Call Sheet

Defense optional? – Early, early days but that USC defense didn’t inspire a ton of national championship-level confidence, huh? We knew this would always be the hard part but I don’t feel super confident after what we saw or didn’t actually see (thanks PAC-12 network) on Saturday night.

FIU couldn’t pass gas – I can’t believe in the year of our lord 2023 that FIU threw for only four more yards than you or I did on Saturday night and still damn near won. Truly an incredible feat.

Dumbfounded by Dana Dimel – Upon further review, that was still some horrific decision-making down the stretch for UTEP. Run the damn ball, Dimel.

Vandy is a construction zone – FirstBank Stadium isn’t the only thing in Nashville that’s still a work in progress. That Commodore offensive line looks like it still needs some work if that team hopes to hold up to an SEC schedule.

Nebraska vs. Minnesota

The Big 10 is kicking off the 2023 season with a bang, courtesy of the Gophers and Huskers. This particular matchup will feature a lot of new. Minnesota will finally debut their new shiny QB in Athan Kaliakmanis, AKA The Greek Rifle. They’ll trot out plenty of new faces on both sides of the ball.

For the Huskers, the newness is much more profound. New coach, new QB, new defense, new everything pretty much. If you’re in and around Huskerland like I am, you’ve been hearing some summer rumblings about how good QB Jeff Sims has looked. I guess we’ll find out more about that come Thursday night.

I’m very curious to see how these quarterbacks perform. Both strike me as a little raw and with both making their true debuts at the same time, this game smells like a low-scoring, cagey affair. I’m very bearish on Nebraska’s defense in Year 1, and historically, Rhule struggled early both at Temple and Baylor.

I expect Minnesota to pound the rock, attempt to minimize the early-season mistakes from Kaliakmanis and kickstart the campaign with a nice home win.

Florida vs. Utah

Last year, Billy Napier kicked off his Gator tenure with a thrilling upset victory over Utah in Gainesville. This year, the series is flipped and we’ll see the Utes play host. This time around, I suspect the game to look a lot different.

The major question coming into this game is whether Utah’s star quarterback Cam Rising–fresh off an unfortunate ACL injury in the Rose Bowl–will play or not. My hunch is he does not play, which means we’ll likely see junior Bryson Barnes lead the charge. That smells like a lot of pounding the rock, if you ask me.

For the Gators, I’m curious to see how the Graham Mertz experience goes. Mertz struggled mightily for the Badgers last season, despite having a really strong freshman campaign. There have been some not-so-quiet rumblings out of fall camp about how good he looks, though. We shall see.

My guess is that this game is a bit of a rock fight. Utah will probably lean heavily on the run game, while Florida will probably try to blitz a backup quarterback where they can. I still like Whittingham and the Utes but it should be fairly close.

Boise State vs. Washington

This game just feeeeeeels like one of those classic fun-as-hell Week 1 matchups. Washington is going to be incredibly fun to watch this season, thanks in large part to their Heisman-hopeful quarterback Michael Penix Jr. He and Kalen DeBoer have been a match made in heaven and I really hope that continues this season.

The Huskies did lose their starting running back to a season-ending injury last week…but thanks to Penix, and their three-head monster receiver trio with Rome Odunze, Jalen McMillan and Ja’Lynn Polk I still expect the Huskies offense to be awesome.

For Boise State, last year they really stumbled out of the gate and things started to look bleak. But then they rallied, rattling off seven wins in nine games, and even notched a bowl victory over North Texas. 10 wins is 10 wins and is nothing to sneeze at.

I suspect the Huskies will win by a few touchdowns or more, but I think as a neutral this will be a really fun one to just kick your feet up and tune into.

North Carolina vs. South Carolina

Spencer Rattler versus North Carolina’s defense…what could go wrong?

This game should feature a ton of scoring and big plays. You’ve got Heisman finalist favorite Drake Maye on one side and the rollercoaster ride that is the Spencer Rattler on the other. This is your “getcha popcorn ready” game of the week.

North Carolina (and maybe their fans) are going to try and tell you this year is different. The defense is bigger. They’re better. More disciplined. I will believe it when I see it. I wrote in my CFB Bulls and Bears blog post that I still think UNC will be hindered by their corpse of a defense and I’m sticking with it.

Parker Fleming (@statsowar) of CFB-Graphs has this scoreline within .14 points of each other, giving South Carolina a slight edge. I think I’m siding with Parker on this and picking the Gamecocks.

LSU vs. FSU

This is by and large the game of the weekend. Brian Kelly versus Mike Norvell. Jayden Daniels versus Jordan Travis. The big bad SEC versus someone who desperately wants to be their future conference mate next year. If you can’t tell, I’m really looking forward to this one.

Last year, this was an absolute banger and I suspect this year’s version will follow suit.

I’m sort of buying the FSU hype this year, even if I’m not over the moon about their chances in this game. I do, however, think FSU will probably beat one of LSU or Clemson, and your guess is as good as mine which one of those it could be.

LSU is slightly favored (-2.5) and that’s probably fair. Regardless, this should be the game that rounds out a killer long weekend of college football.

-15 NC State vs. UCONN - 1 unit - Transfer QB Brennan Armstrong should have the Wolfpack offense playing much better this year.

-12.5 Clemson vs. Duke - 1 unit - I like the new Clemson offense to shine.

Northwestern vs. Rutgers Under 40.5 - 1 unit - You wanna get nasty? Let’s get nasty.

Colorado vs. -21 TCU - 1 unit - I’m predicting a tough debut for Deion Sanders and the Buffs.

Kent State vs. UCF Under 58 - 1 unit - This is my sickos play of the week. I don’t suspect Kent State will contribute much at all to this overall scoring line.